Chapter Text
Another night passes near sleeplessly; The few times Nene could manage to doze off, the falling sensation combined with being submerged would always cause her to jerk awake. She knew full well she wasn’t at risk of drowning in this form, yet she felt an instinctual rise in panic the longer she spent underwater. Did real mermaids ever feel this way? They can’t have, Nene figures, living their whole lives in the ocean. Just another thing holding her back.
Eventually, she’s startled awake by something other than her own fears.
“Neneee…! NENEEEE!” a booming voice calls from up the hill.
Something probably much worse—The prince is back.
“I’m here, good gods…!” she responds groggily, pushing herself off the rock she’d been curled up against and drifting toward a sandy perch by the pond’s edge.
Tsukasa emerges from the bushes in an instant, horseless and slightly more disheveled than she remembered him being last night. Was he alone this time…?
“Aha, there you are!” he greets her, stumbling down the slope. Encumbering his princely gait is a massive traveling pack on his back and a large wicker basket on each arm, toting what could only be the most heavenly assortment of foods, judging purely by the smell. “I apologize for the delay—I had quite the trouble finding this place again without your lovely voice to guide me!”
“You… brought food,” Nene manages, too hungry to wait through the pleasantries.
“Of course! I said I would, didn’t I?” the prince asserts, wasting no time in setting his luggage down and unfurling a woven blanket. Out comes fresh fruit, bread rolls, sausages, jars of jam, an entire wheel of cheese, roasted venison from the previous night’s hunt… “I wasn’t sure what a mermaid-witch would want to eat, so I raided the royal pantry for a bit of everything!”
‘Everything’ is the correct answer—The last bushel of grapes has barely left its basket before the mermaid tears into the spread. Tsukasa watches in silent awe as she inhales roll after roll, as if not even needing to chew. Eventually, she’s had her fill, leaving behind a few apples, half the cheese, and two legs of meat.
“That was… impressive,” Tsukasa says at last, and only then does Nene seem to remember he’s there.
“…You try using your best table manners after starving for two days,” she grumbles, wiping her mouth with a corner of the blanket bashfully.
“No, no, I meant it genuinely!” the prince amends, a frustratingly genuine smile on his face. “I only regret not being able to bring you anything sooner—Alas, I was forced to keep up appearances once I returned home. Rushing back out into the woods with all this immediately after disappearing on my entourage would’ve looked quite suspicious.”
“Well… thank you, for keeping it quiet,” Nene says. It was relieving to know he’d taken care to keep her secret, something she hadn’t been sure the prince was capable of, given his flamboyant reputation. “And for the food. Not sure what I’d have done if I’d gone without for much longer.”
Eat bugs, probably. There were no fish living in this pond, and she’d already psyched herself out of eating the unidentifiable plants on the bank.
“I’d never ignore a soul in need, it simply goes against my noble spirit!” Tsukasa proclaims, and she can’t help but roll her eyes. Always an ulterior motive, even behind the most charitable of acts—but if suffering through the prince’s boasting means she gets to eat, she supposes she can humor him for a bit longer.
He seems to ponder over his next words for a moment, thumbing at his own side of the blanket. “So, ah… about that plan to get you out of here…”
Nene didn’t like the look on his face; the cocksure grin the prince always wears is replaced by a slight grimace. “Go on…”
“Well… I’ve exhausted the depths of my tactical expertise, to be frank,” he admits with a sigh. “Our transportation options are severely limited if it is to remain a two-man operation, and even then, each path comes at a great risk to one or both of us.”
Bad answer—Involving anyone else was still not an option. “With all due respect, Your Highness,” the mermaid begins, a biting edge she can’t hold back creeping into her words, “What could you possibly be risking?”
“Now hang on…!” Tsukasa exclaims, his hands shooting up defensively. “I’m in nowhere near as dire straits as you, of course, but, well, I’m held to certain standards as a prince, and arranging for everything we’d need without anyone asking any questions will be a challenge!”
“So it’s all about your reputation,” Nene retorts, shifting her weight on the sand uneasily. Of course she just so happened to ensnare the one person who couldn’t get anything done without a fleet of servants at his beck and call.
“No! Well… yes and no,” he quickly cuts in. “Maybe it sounds selfish, but… What the people of this kingdom think of me, think of my family, is very important. If I’m to be a great king, someone who can really help people, I need them to be able to trust me—No matter how careful we are, rumors always spread about things that happen under the table. Always.” A flash of regret appears behind his eyes, but Nene is too livid to pay it any mind, elongated ears flattened on the sides of her head.
“It is selfish! You’re putting your own political interests over someone who actually does need your help now,” the witch asserts, punctuating her words with a slap of her tail across the surface of the water.
“But it’s the same, don’t you see? Isn’t that why you want to keep all of this quiet, to preserve your own dignity?” the prince asks, gesturing forward. “I can help you, Nene—I will help you. But the best way to get you to the ocean is if we do it above board.”
“It’s. Not. Happening,” she declares, and a heavy silence follows. Nene can’t quite read Tsukasa’s expression, his mouth twisting from side to side as he fails to find the words to assuage her fears, persuade her to comply, whatever. She feels the corners of her eyes begin to sting, turning back toward the water. This was it, wasn’t it? She’d taken a chance, really a long string of chances by now, and it had gotten her nowhere. But a life of bugs and stagnant water has to be better than the alternative.
“…Then we try another way,” Tsukasa says at last. She faces him incredulously, half expecting him to have packed up and left by now, but he meets her gaze with new confidence. “We figure out how to turn you back into a human. I… don’t know anything about magic, really, that’s always been Saki’s realm, but I’m sure she has books she won’t miss! If I bring you some, maybe you can find a solution, a better spell or something, and no one else has to find out.”
It was hardly a plan--the prince, by his own admission, wouldn’t even know where to start in looking for the texts she’d need. The transmogrification spell she’d used was little practiced outside of her own coven, so the chances of even finding a better spell…
A better spell.
Nene straightens. “There’s… someone else who might give us more of a chance,” she admits, and the prince brightens considerably.
“Someone you’d ask for help from?”
“I don’t seem to have much of a choice anymore—We haven’t spoken in a few years, but, well, he sort of owes me.” Thinking quickly, the witch pushes her hands forward and utters a short incantation. Bright wisps of green light shoot from her fingertips, solidifying into a blank paper scroll and a glowing feather quill. Nene quickly snags them before they can hit the ground, and takes a minute to write a message, maybe the most important of her life. Tsukasa leans forward, tilting his head to catch an upside-down glimpse of the letter’s growing contents, but a sharp stare from its author has him averting his sheepish gaze.
When she’s finished, Nene taps the scroll thrice with the plumage side of the quill, and it promptly rolls up, tying off in a neat bow with a sea green cord. The mermaid turns it carefully in her hands, wrestling down any second thoughts before holding it out to the prince.
“The last favor I need from you,” she declares, meeting him with newfound, if tenuous, confidence. “Deliver this to the artificer Rui Kamishiro, at the Showtime Laboratory in lower Whillia—and don’t you dare open it.”